The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems eBook

the fiends in the regions infernal;
The wide night re-echoing howled,
and
the hoarse North-wind laughed o’er the slaughter.
But their ravenous maws unappeased
by
the blood and the flesh of their fellows,
To the cold wind their muzzles they raised,
and
the trail to the oak-tree they followed.
Round and round it they howled for the prey,
madly
leaping and snarling and snapping;
But the brave maiden’s keen arrows slay,
till
the dead number more than the living.
All the long, dreary night-time, at bay,
in
the oak sat the shivering Winona;
But the sun gleamed at last, and away
skulked
the gray cowards[BQ] down through the forest.
Then down dropped the deer and the maid.
Ere
the sun reached the midst of his journey,
Her red, welcome burden she laid
at
the feet of her famishing father.Waziya’s wild wrath was appeased,
and
homeward he turned to his teepee,[3]
O’er the plains and the forest-land breezed
from
the Islands of Summer the South-wind.
From their dens came the coon and the bear;
o’er
the snow through the woodlands they wandered;
On her snow-shoes with stout bow and spear
on
their trails ran the huntress Winona.
The coon to his den in the tree,
and
the bear to his burrow she followed;
A brave, skillful hunter was she,
and
Ta-te-psin’s lodge laughed with abundance.

[BO] Waziya’s Star is the North-star.

[Illustration]

[BP] A strap used in carrying burdens.

[BQ] Wolves sometimes attack people at night, but
rarely, if ever, in the day time. If they have
followed a hunter all night, and “treed”
him, they will skulk away as soon as the sun rises.

DEATH OF TA-TE-PSIN.

The long winter wanes. On the wings
of
the spring come the geese and the mallards;
On the bare oak the red-robin sings,
and
the crocus peeps up on the prairies,
And the bobolink pipes, but he brings
of
the blue-eyed, brave White Chief no tidings.
With the waning of winter, alas,
waned
the life of the aged Ta-te-psin;
Ere the wild pansies peeped from the grass,
to
the Land of the Spirits he journeyed;
Like a babe in its slumber he passed,
or
the snow from the hill-tops of April;
And the dark-eyed Winona, at last,
stood
alone by the graves of her kindred.
When their myriad mouths opened the trees
to
the sweet dew of heaven and the raindrops,
And the April showers fell on the leas,
on
his mound fell the tears of Winona.
Round her drooping form gathered the years
and
the spirits unseen of her kindred,
As low, in the midst of her tears,
at
the grave of her father she chanted